Like most websites, SGL uses cookies in order to deliver a secure, personalised service, to provide social media functions and to analyse our traffic. Continued use of SGL indicates your acceptance of our cookie policy.

I would need those disks to be encased in covers first. But depending on how the controller turns out, that looks the right stuff. I hated the option controller. Didn't like the Meade autocrat controller and love the ss2k , so I may have problems there...

Agreed with the latter. It is another degree of freedom to control however. I have the TS OAG and the Brightstar. The latter had a prism tilt facility. But if you position the pickup right on the edge of the camera for you will get the best stars. And I find it's worth spending the time to focus as sharp as possible since you want as many stars to guide on from all over the sky as possible and sometimes they are hard to come by.

According to simply bearings, the pressed steel bearings need a dose of lubricant to smooth out the balls motion and also add some damping, at which point they will glide. I suggest some dabs of normal lithium grease will provide the smoothness and sticktion you want.
I don't see the point of using a bearing like this and then raising the base onto ptfe gliders such that the bearings aren't running in their races properly - there's no advantage of a bearing there at all other than to provide a centre of rotation.
I like the idea of transport bearings if you have a hard enough base surface.

Opinion. I tried indi. Works, a bit klunkie.
You will also find spurious com ports that windows remembers, especially after unexpected disconnects.
They are safe to delete if you know which ones are real. I must say, I don't see this test in my ascom port trace so I suspect this is not ascom probing but testing those 'remembered' ports to see if they are real. Of course you could check the source code in source forge to find that out for certain.
HTh